Este site dedica-se às aves e a relação com o Homem. O canto do Canário Timbrado, Canário Harz Roller, do canário Malinois e outros canários.. O objectivo de site é contar as aventuras e os arcos de descobertas relacionados com Homem e as aves. This site is dedicated to birds.singing canaries song,canaries,canaries de chant. carmelita=carmelo=jardim
31 de janeiro de 2015
25 de janeiro de 2015
24 de janeiro de 2015
23 de janeiro de 2015
A Baixa da Natalidade: As razões do Estado e os Direitos das Mulheres
Nasceu em Mangualde a 18 de Junho de 1872. Começou a escrever com vinte e três anos. Foi a fundadora da literatura infantil em Portugal, reformulando e celebrizando contos populares portugueses, ao mesmo tempo que publicava histórias originais. Fundou a revista feminina `A Sociedade Futura´ e foi uma das principais impulsionadoras da Liga Republicana das Mulheres Portuguesas, trabalhando e publicando várias obras sobre educação das crianças e a condição feminina, bem como numerosas obras didácticas.
21 de janeiro de 2015
19 de janeiro de 2015
18 de janeiro de 2015
17 de janeiro de 2015
Herdade do Esporão
Há quem diga que a nossa Franga-de-água pequena é uma ave rara. Podia ser uma ofensa para muitos, mas não o é para ela. A Franga-de-água é uma das aves mais difíceis de observar em Portugal e, felizmente, vive connosco.
16 de janeiro de 2015
cantai cantigas / sing songs
Trás-os-montes, a poor region in the north of Portugal.
2 trips, one on the summer, another on the winter time, searching for people and songs.
Bruno, 8 years-old ‘sings with the tapes’.
Deolinda ‘walks with the cows’ and show us the village cemetery that ‘has a lot to see’. Ti Ana, 90 years-old, sings songs by the fire with the neighbors who ask her to ‘sing another one’. Oral tradition songs, learned from her mother and grand-mother, sang in ‘mirandes’ a local dialect. The songs tell us tragic stories that might remind one of Shakespeare.
I shot this documentary in 1999 but just finished it in 2006. I always thought I would go back there one day. What I shot in 1999 I thought would be the first step in my research, not the entire film, but I never went back there. It is a project that I was dedicated to, so I decided to look at the footage I had with an open mind, trying not to think about what I wanted to do by then, but just watch what was actually in the images.
I was surprised how things made sense. My affection for the persons I was shooting with and the respect I felt for those were in the images and it already had an inner flow. This was the first time I felt my images were so clear, sharp, with everything right inside. And I could listen to those songs forever… there’s something primal and essential in them, in the way people live and relate with the landscape, the Nature, the fire…
more in claudiatomaz.com
Tirioni (Tradicional Portugal - Mirandese language)
Cardai cardicas cardai
la lhana pa los cobertores,
que las pulgas (e)stan prenhadas,
van a parir cardadores.
Tirioni tioni tioni
tirioni tioni tiono
La moda d´l Tirioni
quin l´havi(e) d(e)aumentare?
Un burro d(e)un cardadore
que la truxo pal´lhugare!
L´lhugar de Du(e)s Eigreijas
te(n) una pidra bermelha
donde se sentam los moçus
a peinar a la guedeilha.
L´lhugar de Du(e)s Eigreijas
te(n) una pidra redonda
donde se sentam los moçus
quando benam de la ronda.
Ceara Conway
Idioma mirandés
Mirandese language
Língua mirandesa
15 de janeiro de 2015
Bird of Dawn
A composer struggles to host a concert featuring female singers as public performances by women are banned in Iran. In 2011, Sara Najafi, a young composer from Tehran, decides to try and make her dream become a reality: hosting a public concert featuring the best contemporary Iranian and French female singers. But public performances by solo female vocalists in front of men have been banned in Iran since 1979. To stage such a concert, Sara has to coordinate the busy schedules of the performers as well as secure the agreement both of the Iranian culture ministry and the religious authorities. Over three years, the camera traces her progress, the highs and lows as agreements are issued then revoked, permits offered then declined, forcing Sara to start the process all over again. But she is tenacious and firmly believes that eventually the concert will take place. Bird of Dawn is a fascinating and dramatic film, giving deep insight into modern Iranian voices and views and exploring with tact and sensitivity Iran's musical heritage and the issues of censorship and prohibition. more in Al Jazeera
14 de janeiro de 2015
12 de janeiro de 2015
11 de janeiro de 2015
10 de janeiro de 2015
Blood work: scientists uncover surprising new tools to rejuvenate the brain
Scientists used to believe that our neurologic fate was sealed at birth with a single, lifetime allotment of brain cells.
The thinking went – not so very long ago – that little by little, with the bumps of age and lifestyle, this initial stash of neurons died, taking our brain function along with them.
 | |
| Illustration by David Senior |
Yet, strange as it may sound, canaries, video games, and young blood are finally putting that punishing prospect to rest.
Studies involving bird song, gaming, and the rejuvenating factors of young blood have shown not only that neurons can be generated throughout adulthood, but also that the maddening aspects of ageing, such as memory loss and slower processing speed, can be partially reversed.
- See more at: http://www.domain-b.com/technology/Health_Medicine/20150110_brain.html#sthash.Oy4JyNFd.dpuf
Both neuroscientists and coal miners revere the canary, but for entirely different reasons. Like humans, canaries are known in neuro-science as ''open learners,'' meaning they learn throughout adulthood. ''Canaries learn songs, like we learn language, from older adults when young,'' explains Arturo Alvarez-Buylla, PhD, a stem cell neurobiologist at UC San Francisco.
As they get older, they tweak their songs seasonally to distinguish themselves during mating season. Alvarez-Buylla's mentor, neuroscientist Fernando Nottebohm, PhD, a professor at Rockefeller University, suspected that as these parts of the canary brain assembled and disassembled for the yearly acquisition of the new mating song, new neurons were being taken on board. Such a notion was unimaginable at the time.
''When Nottebohm proved by morphology, electrophysiology, electron micro-scopy, and connectivity between 1983 and 1986 that the new cells were neurons, the whole field of stem cell science became a lot more exciting,'' recalls Alvarez-Buylla, who holds the Heather and Melanie Muss Endowed Chair in the Department of Neurological Surgery. The jaws of neuroscientists throughout the world dropped at the possibilities posed by Nottebohm's finding.
Neurogenesis offered a new way to repair damage wrought by age, neurological injury, or disease. Alvarez-Buylla went on to advance the field ever further by identifying the neural stem cell, its origins, and its behavior in the mammalian brain.
Blood shotNow, decades later, young blood – literally speaking – has joined the canary as a harbinger and waypoint en route to realizing the promise of neurologic rejuvenation.Last spring, University of California at San francisco (UCSF) Faculty Fellow Saul Villeda, PhD, published a study in Nature Medicine showing significant signs of reversal of age-related cognitive decline in old mice after they were infused with the blood of young mice over the course of several weeks. Two other studies showing the revitalizing effects of young blood in brain and muscle tissue were published at the same time.
''All three studies coming out simultaneously made things go supernova,'' says Villeda, who, at the age of 33, is a bit of a young blood himself. In the media frenzy that followed, Villeda was inundated with requests for interviews, in both English and Spanish.
Born and raised in East Los Angeles, Villeda was able to deliver in both languages. ''What we were saying collectively, across three impressive institutions – UCSF, Stanford, and Harvard – is that there is reversibility in the ageing process. It's a bit of a game changer.''
The experiment itself proved quite easy for Villeda to explain to the lay press. He and the graduate students in his lab took the blood of young mice, stripped it of its cells, and infused the remaining plasma into old mice.
They did this every three days for 24 days, using small injections of the plasma each time – just 5 per cent of a mouse's blood volume.
The young mice in the study were 3 months old, the equivalent of humans in their 20s, and the old mice were 18 months old, the equivalent of humans in their 60s.
Days later, he tested them for cognitive changes. In one experiment, the mice had to wind through a water maze and remember where a dry platform was hidden; in another, the mice had to recall a location where they had received a shock. ''When we gave them the injections of young blood, they no longer had the cognitive impairments of a normally ageing mouse,'' says Villeda.
''Their performance wasn't quite equal to the young mice, but pretty close.''
The two experiments tested the functioning of the hippocampus, a part of the brain, in both mice and humans, that is especially affected by normal ageing. It's our hippocampus that we use in searching for our car in a crowded parking lot. When we park, our brain, without prompting, will note spatial cues in the environment and keep them in mind to guide us back to the same place hours later. But the older we are, the more likely we are to forget those spatial cues, throw in the towel, and press the panic button to find the car.
''As we get older, we have fewer stem cells and newly born neurons in our brains, and our learning and memory are affected,'' says Villeda. ''It's not dementia, it's just the natural degeneration associated with age.''
Flipping SwitchesClearly, the young blood helped turn back the clock for Villeda's old mice. So he began searching for molecular and biochemical changes in their brains that might explain the transformation.
To accomplish this, he used the somewhat macabre technique of parabiosis, which involves sewing a young mouse to an old mouse so they share a single blood supply. After a month, he sequenced the genes of the old mice and found that the biggest changes occurred in genes associated with neuronal plasticity, the brain's response to learning.
When we are learning or responding to our environment, our brain either increases the number of connections among neurons or strengthens our existing neuronal connections.
''Normally, with ageing, the activity of genes that control synaptic plasticity decreases,'' says Villeda. ''We saw that exposure to young blood increased the expression or activity of these genes.''
The old mice with the new high-octane blood were blazing through the mazes because their neurons were making new connections, and solidifying previous connections, with the vigour of mice less than half their age.
Villeda and his students searched the gene array for some sort of mechanism that might be responsible for the surge of neuroplasticity in these middle-aged mice who, without the blood infusion, might still be trapped in the maze.
The patterns of activated genes and changes they found looked to Villeda like the work of a master regulator known as CREB.
''CREB is an old friend of neuroscience,'' he explains. ''We know that it's very important for learning and memory, especially during development.'' To figure out the extent of CREB's role, a student in Villeda's lab manufactured a virus carrying a phosphate that would turn CREB off, then repeated the blood-infusion experiments on mice lacking this master regulator. In the new experiments, the old mice with young blood gained some benefits of youth, but the effect was significantly dampened. The experiments showed clearly that CREB is important – but that it doesn't work alone.
''Now we know that as we get older, we are not necessarily losing the genes or proteins in our brains that we need to improve cognition. Maybe, like CREB, they are just not as active,'' says Villeda. ''We've identified one part of the mechanism to wake up the brain. Now we have to find the other genes it works with to replicate the full effect.''
Hold or Reset?Villeda is quite excited at the prospect of applying these findings to humans – a sentiment surely shared by anyone over the age of 40. ''We know rejuvenation exists,'' he says. ''Now we have to figure out the bare minimum of therapeutics or genetic tinkering necessary for it to be safely translated into a human. There are so many questions we have yet to answer.''
For example: What part of plasma is really driving the changes, and are they lasting? Mice only live an average of three years; we live 80. How often would humans have to be treated, and when should treatments start? Cell proliferation slows in old age, perhaps to offset cancer risk. Would young blood factors stimulate cancer? If so, it might be more prudent to switch off the mechanisms that initiate the ageing cascade.
''People who have a genetic predisposition for Alzheimer's have a mutation, but they don't get the effects until later in life, which means that something in their young bodies knew how to fight it or compensate for it,'' says Villeda. ''If we could reverse some of the ageing signs, perhaps we could maintain ourselves at a younger stage and then maybe not have to deal with diseases until far later in life.''
Game OnWhile Villeda is turning back the clock in his cohort of mice, Adam Gazzaley, MD, PhD, is beating back cognitive decline with a joystick. Dressed in a black shirt and sleek gray blazer, Gazzaley looks more like a biotech executive than a neuroscientist. It turns out he's both. Gazzaley rocked the world of neuroscience last fall with the release of a video game, NeuroRacer, that dramatically improved cognitive performance in elderly players. In the game, players drive a car along a winding track, while various signs flash into view along the way. Players are instructed to press a button when a specific sign pops up, ignoring the rest, all while keeping their eyes on the road.
''We developed NeuroRacer to put pressure on cognitive control abilities in a powerful way in older adults, who we know have deficits in this domain just by virtue of their age,'' says Gazzaley. ''The results were better than we even dreamed of.'' After one month and just 12 hours of training, players who were between 60 and 85 years old were scoring as well as 20-somethings who had just learned the game. And, retested six months later, the players were still holding onto those gains.
The cognitive skills Gazzaley aimed to improve with his game are selective attention, sustained attention, working memory, and task switching. ''We are building a tool to help people develop the cognitive control skills they need to interact with their environment based on their goals,'' says Gazzaley. ''If we're trying to do too many things at once and can't hold our attention to something we want to focus on, then all aspects of our lives suffer, whether it is family, work, safety, or even entertainment.''
Using EEGs, Gazzaley was able to show increased brain activity in the prefrontal cortex of the older players. After they played the game, their EEGs started to resemble those of 20-somethings. The prefrontal cortex, considered the seat of cognitive control, is the last part of our brains to develop – at around age 25. It is also the area that distinguishes humans from all other species.
The EEGs showed signs of connectivity to other parts of the brain as well. Like Villeda's mice and Nottebohm's canaries, Gazzaley's game-players were enhancing their neuroplasticity, adding new connections while strengthening existing ones. He confirmed these gains by testing other areas of cognition. When assigned a facial recognition challenge, Gazzaley's players showed improvements in working memory.
This showed that the benefits of game play were transferable to other brain functions. Transfer, considered the gold standard for effectiveness in the field, is evidence of underlying neural connections among different areas of cognition. ''That's exactly what we wanted to achieve – to see if we could change the brain in a meaningful way,'' says Gazzaley, ''and have that accompanied by changes in cognitive abilities that we weren't directly targeting.''
NeuroRacer is clearly not your ordinary video game, in which users try to reach ever-higher levels of expertise. While popular first-person shooter games have been shown to improve cognitive abilities in young adults, Gazzaley says this happens by accident. NeuroRacer is a closed-loop game, in which the level of play is adjusted to the player's behavior – and eventually to his or her own brain.
The next version of the game, which Gazzaley is developing with Boston-based Akili Interactive Labs, where he is chief science adviser, will feature closed loops that adapt during every second of play. Gazzaley's lab is also working on new games that employ transcranial electrical stimulation, a very mild shock targeted to particular parts of the brain to enhance learning. When playing one of these new games, the player receives low-frequency bursts of energy in certain parts of the frontal lobe. ''We are studying if you learn faster if you play a game while we stimulate you at the right frequency,'' Gazzaley explains.
The therapeutic and educational potential of such games is real and vast. They could be targeted, like NeuroRacer, to a healthy elderly population or be used as an educational tool in schools. Or they could be used to ameliorate known deficits in old and young alike. Gazzaley is currently working with pediatric neurologist Elysa Marco, PhD, on a game aimed at helping children with attention deficit disorder to better train their focus. The two are also teaming up to develop games for patients with autism, in an effort to stimulate the parts of their brains that the disorder has locked away.
80 IS THE NEW 20: The brain's command center for multitasking is in the prefrontal cortex. The brain scan on the left depicts the prefrontal cortex activity of Gazzaley's 20-year-old subjects as they played NeuroRacer, a video game that involves multitasking. The scan in the middle depicts the starting point for his 60- to 85-year-old players, playing the game the first time. And the scan on the right shows the progress the older players made after playing a total of just 12 hours over the course of a month. Their scans showed signatures of brain activity comparable to that of the 20-year-olds who had played the game once.
New bloodGazzaley and Villeda come at cognition along very different paths, but with equally impressive vigor and results. And they are energised by each other's work. ''Adam's games are incredible,'' says Villeda. ''Soon we will be able to grab an iPad and do games that will significantly improve our cognition. Who would have thought of that?''
Villeda sees parallels in their approaches to enhancing cognition during the ageing process – through collaboration. He joined forces with bioinformaticians to help him sort through his data, with molecular biologists to create viruses, and with behavioural neuroscientists to identify the best ways to test cognition. ''Immunology, neurobiology, and stem cell science all come together when talking about rejuvenation,'' says Villeda. He believes that building bridges among disciplines will be critical for translating what is now fascinating research into the clinical realm.
''Saul's and my research could be very synergistic in ways that we don't fully understand right now, and Alvarez-Buylla's work has been foundational to neuroscience,'' says Gazzaley. ''There is no Holy Grail for enhancing cognition, so what we probably should have been focusing on for the past 40 years is how the many interventions in our toolbox might interact with each other.''
Perhaps someday soon, baby boomers will be able to relive their 20s, at least cognitively, by taking a shot of Villeda's revitalizing plasma while playing a video game developed by Gazzaley. Or maybe Alvarez-Buylla will have figured out how to engineer the perfect mix of neural stem cells to rebuild what age tears down. While we wait, Gazzaley urges us to apply all the strategies that science has already endorsed: Research has long shown that diet, exercise, and enriched, engaging environments are good for the brain. In fact, a new study out of the Cleveland Clinic showed that people with a genetic predisposition for Alzheimer's were able to stave off neurologic decline with a three-day-a-week exercise routine. Those with the same disposition who chose not to get off the couch showed significant degeneration.
''Clearly the brain does not do well with comfort,'' Gazzaley says, ''so challenge it as much as you can.''- See more at: http://www.domain-b.com/technology/Health_Medicine/20150110_brain.html#sthash.Oy4JyNFd.dpuf
''Normally, with ageing, the activity of genes that control synaptic plasticity decreases,'' says Villeda. ''We saw that exposure to young blood increased the expression or activity of these genes.''
The old mice with the new high-octane blood were blazing through the mazes because their neurons were making new connections, and solidifying previous connections, with the vigour of mice less than half their age.
Villeda and his students searched the gene array for some sort of mechanism that might be responsible for the surge of neuroplasticity in these middle-aged mice who, without the blood infusion, might still be trapped in the maze.
The patterns of activated genes and changes they found looked to Villeda like the work of a master regulator known as CREB.
''CREB is an old friend of neuroscience,'' he explains. ''We know that it's very important for learning and memory, especially during development.'' To figure out the extent of CREB's role, a student in Villeda's lab manufactured a virus carrying a phosphate that would turn CREB off, then repeated the blood-infusion experiments on mice lacking this master regulator. In the new experiments, the old mice with young blood gained some benefits of youth, but the effect was significantly dampened. The experiments showed clearly that CREB is important – but that it doesn't work alone.
''Now we know that as we get older, we are not necessarily losing the genes or proteins in our brains that we need to improve cognition. Maybe, like CREB, they are just not as active,'' says Villeda. ''We've identified one part of the mechanism to wake up the brain. Now we have to find the other genes it works with to replicate the full effect.''
Hold or Reset?Villeda is quite excited at the prospect of applying these findings to humans – a sentiment surely shared by anyone over the age of 40. ''We know rejuvenation exists,'' he says. ''Now we have to figure out the bare minimum of therapeutics or genetic tinkering necessary for it to be safely translated into a human. There are so many questions we have yet to answer.''
For example: What part of plasma is really driving the changes, and are they lasting? Mice only live an average of three years; we live 80. How often would humans have to be treated, and when should treatments start? Cell proliferation slows in old age, perhaps to offset cancer risk. Would young blood factors stimulate cancer? If so, it might be more prudent to switch off the mechanisms that initiate the ageing cascade.
''People who have a genetic predisposition for Alzheimer's have a mutation, but they don't get the effects until later in life, which means that something in their young bodies knew how to fight it or compensate for it,'' says Villeda. ''If we could reverse some of the ageing signs, perhaps we could maintain ourselves at a younger stage and then maybe not have to deal with diseases until far later in life.''
Game OnWhile Villeda is turning back the clock in his cohort of mice, Adam Gazzaley, MD, PhD, is beating back cognitive decline with a joystick. Dressed in a black shirt and sleek gray blazer, Gazzaley looks more like a biotech executive than a neuroscientist. It turns out he's both. Gazzaley rocked the world of neuroscience last fall with the release of a video game, NeuroRacer, that dramatically improved cognitive performance in elderly players. In the game, players drive a car along a winding track, while various signs flash into view along the way. Players are instructed to press a button when a specific sign pops up, ignoring the rest, all while keeping their eyes on the road.
''We developed NeuroRacer to put pressure on cognitive control abilities in a powerful way in older adults, who we know have deficits in this domain just by virtue of their age,'' says Gazzaley. ''The results were better than we even dreamed of.'' After one month and just 12 hours of training, players who were between 60 and 85 years old were scoring as well as 20-somethings who had just learned the game. And, retested six months later, the players were still holding onto those gains.
The cognitive skills Gazzaley aimed to improve with his game are selective attention, sustained attention, working memory, and task switching. ''We are building a tool to help people develop the cognitive control skills they need to interact with their environment based on their goals,'' says Gazzaley. ''If we're trying to do too many things at once and can't hold our attention to something we want to focus on, then all aspects of our lives suffer, whether it is family, work, safety, or even entertainment.''
Using EEGs, Gazzaley was able to show increased brain activity in the prefrontal cortex of the older players. After they played the game, their EEGs started to resemble those of 20-somethings. The prefrontal cortex, considered the seat of cognitive control, is the last part of our brains to develop – at around age 25. It is also the area that distinguishes humans from all other species.
The EEGs showed signs of connectivity to other parts of the brain as well. Like Villeda's mice and Nottebohm's canaries, Gazzaley's game-players were enhancing their neuroplasticity, adding new connections while strengthening existing ones. He confirmed these gains by testing other areas of cognition. When assigned a facial recognition challenge, Gazzaley's players showed improvements in working memory.
This showed that the benefits of game play were transferable to other brain functions. Transfer, considered the gold standard for effectiveness in the field, is evidence of underlying neural connections among different areas of cognition. ''That's exactly what we wanted to achieve – to see if we could change the brain in a meaningful way,'' says Gazzaley, ''and have that accompanied by changes in cognitive abilities that we weren't directly targeting.''
NeuroRacer is clearly not your ordinary video game, in which users try to reach ever-higher levels of expertise. While popular first-person shooter games have been shown to improve cognitive abilities in young adults, Gazzaley says this happens by accident. NeuroRacer is a closed-loop game, in which the level of play is adjusted to the player's behavior – and eventually to his or her own brain.
The next version of the game, which Gazzaley is developing with Boston-based Akili Interactive Labs, where he is chief science adviser, will feature closed loops that adapt during every second of play. Gazzaley's lab is also working on new games that employ transcranial electrical stimulation, a very mild shock targeted to particular parts of the brain to enhance learning. When playing one of these new games, the player receives low-frequency bursts of energy in certain parts of the frontal lobe. ''We are studying if you learn faster if you play a game while we stimulate you at the right frequency,'' Gazzaley explains.
The therapeutic and educational potential of such games is real and vast. They could be targeted, like NeuroRacer, to a healthy elderly population or be used as an educational tool in schools. Or they could be used to ameliorate known deficits in old and young alike. Gazzaley is currently working with pediatric neurologist Elysa Marco, PhD, on a game aimed at helping children with attention deficit disorder to better train their focus. The two are also teaming up to develop games for patients with autism, in an effort to stimulate the parts of their brains that the disorder has locked away.
80 IS THE NEW 20: The brain's command center for multitasking is in the prefrontal cortex. The brain scan on the left depicts the prefrontal cortex activity of Gazzaley's 20-year-old subjects as they played NeuroRacer, a video game that involves multitasking. The scan in the middle depicts the starting point for his 60- to 85-year-old players, playing the game the first time. And the scan on the right shows the progress the older players made after playing a total of just 12 hours over the course of a month. Their scans showed signatures of brain activity comparable to that of the 20-year-olds who had played the game once.
New bloodGazzaley and Villeda come at cognition along very different paths, but with equally impressive vigor and results. And they are energised by each other's work. ''Adam's games are incredible,'' says Villeda. ''Soon we will be able to grab an iPad and do games that will significantly improve our cognition. Who would have thought of that?''
Villeda sees parallels in their approaches to enhancing cognition during the ageing process – through collaboration. He joined forces with bioinformaticians to help him sort through his data, with molecular biologists to create viruses, and with behavioural neuroscientists to identify the best ways to test cognition. ''Immunology, neurobiology, and stem cell science all come together when talking about rejuvenation,'' says Villeda. He believes that building bridges among disciplines will be critical for translating what is now fascinating research into the clinical realm.
''Saul's and my research could be very synergistic in ways that we don't fully understand right now, and Alvarez-Buylla's work has been foundational to neuroscience,'' says Gazzaley. ''There is no Holy Grail for enhancing cognition, so what we probably should have been focusing on for the past 40 years is how the many interventions in our toolbox might interact with each other.''
Perhaps someday soon, baby boomers will be able to relive their 20s, at least cognitively, by taking a shot of Villeda's revitalizing plasma while playing a video game developed by Gazzaley. Or maybe Alvarez-Buylla will have figured out how to engineer the perfect mix of neural stem cells to rebuild what age tears down. While we wait, Gazzaley urges us to apply all the strategies that science has already endorsed: Research has long shown that diet, exercise, and enriched, engaging environments are good for the brain. In fact, a new study out of the Cleveland Clinic showed that people with a genetic predisposition for Alzheimer's were able to stave off neurologic decline with a three-day-a-week exercise routine. Those with the same disposition who chose not to get off the couch showed significant degeneration.
''Clearly the brain does not do well with comfort,'' Gazzaley says, ''so challenge it as much as you can.''- See more at: http://www.domain-b.com/technology/Health_Medicine/20150110_brain.html#sthash.Oy4JyNFd.dpuf
Jan. 8, 1948: When judge chirps, birds begin to sing
EDMONTON -
Canaries rarely make headlines these days, although they’re still referenced in
popular speech, as in “a canary in a coal mine” (an early warning) or “sing
like a canary,” (providing information about a crime to the police).
Sixty-seven
years ago, members of the Edmonton Roller Canary and Type Bird Society were
preparing to show off their fine feathered songbirds at the 11th-annual canary
show.
More than
100 canaries were judged in several categories for colour, type and singing.
Frank
Lajoy, a railroader and canary fancier from Portland, Ore.,
was brought in to judge the event held at the I.O.O.F. Hall on 103rd Street.
“As Mr.
Lajoy, with report sheet and pencil in hand, cocked his ear to the bass rolls,
glucke rolls, and flutes of four of the 147 canaries entered in the show, he
commented there was a possibility of finding an Enrico Caruso or maybe a Bing
Crosby in the group,” the Journal story said.
“Usually,
birds which sing baritone are preferred,” the judge said. “Their notes are
truer and have a musical value that is a requisite of a good singer, but many
good birds do sing in other ranges.”
For a
perfect performance, which was rare, the story noted, a canary must go through
10 tours, meaning it must sing 10 different little “ditties” without a break.
It could repeat any of the 10 as it went through general song, but each of the
group had to be included.
If a bird
is judged a bad singer, that doesn’t mean it lacks talent. The onus usually
falls on the trainer, who lacks the required ability to develop the canary’s
voice.
Before
getting its curtain call in a show, a canary is kept in the dark. “Then when
it’s time to perform, it gets the idea that it is sunrise, and consequently his
time to sing,” the story said.
“Mr. Lajoy
prefers to judge the birds in fours. He lets them build up a chorus or sing
individual solos, but always seems to be able to tell which bird is doing what
and credits them individually.
He was
having trouble getting one quartet into a singing mood, and he finally had to
do a little chirping and whistling of his own. The birds caught on in a hurry
and, not wishing to be outdone by any human, soon had the judge’s room
resounding with their own singing.”
The average
quartet was given about 30 minutes to do its bit before the judge.
Birds could
score a possible 56 marks and Lajoy said one bird entered in the show had
reached that mark.
An
exceptionally good singer could be sold for as much as $300, but the average
for this type of bird was $50-$150.
czdeb@edmontonjournal.com
Jan. 8, 1948: When judge chirps, birds begin to sing
EDMONTON -
Canaries rarely make headlines these days, although they’re still referenced in
popular speech, as in “a canary in a coal mine” (an early warning) or “sing
like a canary,” (providing information about a crime to the police).
Sixty-seven
years ago, members of the Edmonton Roller Canary and Type Bird Society were
preparing to show off their fine feathered songbirds at the 11th-annual canary
show.
More than
100 canaries were judged in several categories for colour, type and singing.
Frank
Lajoy, a railroader and canary fancier from Portland, Ore.,
was brought in to judge the event held at the I.O.O.F. Hall on 103rd Street.
“As Mr.
Lajoy, with report sheet and pencil in hand, cocked his ear to the bass rolls,
glucke rolls, and flutes of four of the 147 canaries entered in the show, he
commented there was a possibility of finding an Enrico Caruso or maybe a Bing
Crosby in the group,” the Journal story said.
“Usually,
birds which sing baritone are preferred,” the judge said. “Their notes are
truer and have a musical value that is a requisite of a good singer, but many
good birds do sing in other ranges.”
For a
perfect performance, which was rare, the story noted, a canary must go through
10 tours, meaning it must sing 10 different little “ditties” without a break.
It could repeat any of the 10 as it went through general song, but each of the
group had to be included.
If a bird
is judged a bad singer, that doesn’t mean it lacks talent. The onus usually
falls on the trainer, who lacks the required ability to develop the canary’s
voice.
Before
getting its curtain call in a show, a canary is kept in the dark. “Then when
it’s time to perform, it gets the idea that it is sunrise, and consequently his
time to sing,” the story said.
“Mr. Lajoy
prefers to judge the birds in fours. He lets them build up a chorus or sing
individual solos, but always seems to be able to tell which bird is doing what
and credits them individually.
He was
having trouble getting one quartet into a singing mood, and he finally had to
do a little chirping and whistling of his own. The birds caught on in a hurry
and, not wishing to be outdone by any human, soon had the judge’s room
resounding with their own singing.”
The average
quartet was given about 30 minutes to do its bit before the judge.
Birds could
score a possible 56 marks and Lajoy said one bird entered in the show had
reached that mark.
An
exceptionally good singer could be sold for as much as $300, but the average
for this type of bird was $50-$150.
czdeb@edmontonjournal.com
7 de janeiro de 2015
Street Art -Graffiti português eleito um dos melhores do mundo
O “Rapaz dos Pássaros”, um graffiti pintado pelo português Sérgio Odeith, foi eleito um dos 24 melhores murais do mundo em 2014.
O trabalho artístico encontra-se numa das empenas do Auditório José Afonso, em Setúbal.
A distinção veio por parte do movimento “I Support Street Art”, que divulga os melhores murais executados no ano que passou, com trabalhos em países como Porto Rico, Estados Unidos da América, Canadá, Polónia, Reino Unido, Grécia, Marrocos, África do Sul, entre outros.
O mural, com 20 metros de altura, é uma reprodução de uma fotografia de Américo Ribeiro, com cerca de 80 anos e que retrata um menino a vender pássaros na rua.
Pintado em Março de 2014, O “Rapaz dos Pássaros” pode ser visto a várias centenas de metros de distância. Elaborado numa técnica mista de pintura de rolo e de graffiti, demorou nove dias a ser executado.
O trabalho de Odeith, um conhecido street artist português, foi criado no âmbito do projecto “Arte em Toda a Parte”, no âmbito da construção do centro comercial Alegro Setúbal.
4 de janeiro de 2015
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